On epistemic justice in career guidance

Abstract

This paper presents a framework for understanding epistemic injustice in career development theory and practice. It is based on Fricker’s philosophical conceptualisation of epistemic injustice and its sub-forms of hermeneutical and testimonial injustice. The intention is to generate insights that direct us to injustices embedded in knowledge production and institutional practices that harm a person’s capacity as a knower. Moreover, the intellectual-ethical virtue of mitigating epistemic injustice and how this virtue can be enacted in the context of career guidance are discussed. I argue that epistemic justice approaches contribute to intellectual and ethical dimensions of social justice and there is a need to examine distinct forms of injustices of knowing manifested in the knowledge of career development and career guidance practice.